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Submission Drawing

There is never more than a fag paper between them

24.09.26 —

I overheard a teenager describing a gay couple as "never having more than a fag paper between them…" In my closeted teenage years, I didn't know anyone gay, and school was an exclusively heteronormative environment due to Section 28. The only gay couples I had to look up to were to be found in the gay porn magazines I secretly bought and kept hidden.

Inspired by this phrase and the play on words - in the UK, ‘fag’ is first and foremost a colloquial term for a cigarette, before being a homophobic slur, I draw male couples referenced from this deeply personal printed material onto fragile fag (cigarette) papers. The delicate pencil marks on the thin papers echo the fragility of queer visibility at that time, transforming images that were once hidden in shame into tender, intimate portraits.


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James Robert Morrison

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There is never more than a fag paper between them

24.09.26 —

I overheard a teenager describing a gay couple as “never having more than a fag paper between them…” In my closeted teenage years, I didn’t know anyone gay, and school was an exclusively heteronormative environment due to Section 28. The only gay couples I had to look up to were to be found in the gay porn magazines I secretly bought and kept hidden.

Inspired by this phrase and the play on words – in the UK, ‘fag’ is first and foremost a colloquial term for a cigarette, before being a homophobic slur, I draw male couples referenced from this deeply personal printed material onto fragile fag (cigarette) papers. The delicate pencil marks on the thin papers echo the fragility of queer visibility at that time, transforming images that were once hidden in shame into tender, intimate portraits.

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